The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-05-28

and bloody wrath, poison the mind of
this author. He writes with intense
earnestness, sometimes eloquently and
then absurdly and recklessly. What
good his exposures Of wrong and
injustice might do in awakening
thought is made null by his grave errors.
To tell the truth, even when it is un-
welcome, with severe and startling
plainness, is a noble and needed task,
but to err in what is alleged as truth,
to build false theories on false premises,
to assert and assume much and prove
little, makes one an unsafe and danger
Gus guide. Such guide is Henry
George. His good intent need not be
questioned, but true philosophy, sound
judgment and carefulness in correct
statement are needed to make the best
intentions valuable-to prevent them
from indeed working positive injury.
His books, and others on like topics,
are efforts to meet and solve the great
problems which confront us. The last
half century has been marked by an
immense increase of the precious met
ais, by a wealth Of varied mechanism
and inventive skill, q boldness and
power in engineering, a mastery of man
over nature never before known. This
has vastly increased our power of pro-
ductiveness, making the stroke of
great engine forge and weld more than
hundred hammers, or the click of Gu
rious machinery do the work of hun
dred hands. 1t has increased the worlds
commerce and added vastly to the
wealth of all civilized lands. 1t has
tended to change the old methods of
production, and to put workman into
great shops and mills to make or to
guide costly machines. Capital moves
in masses, and its cO-wOrker labor
moves in masses also. The old way
was one or two men working in their
own little shop; the new way is a hun
dred or thousand men working for a
great corporation. The old method Of
transportation was the stage coach and
the freight wagon carrying dozen pas
sengers or ton or two Of freight; the
new mode is the railway train of two
hundred passengers or two hundred tons
of freight-more done and greater cap
ital combined for the larger result.
The change has been so great and so
sudden that we have not rightly adjust
ed the new order of things. Capital,
grown greatly feels its power and presses
hard on labor, which has also grown
stronger and able to push back against
capital. -Fhe intelligent and d,@hHHane
among employers and employed are rec
ognizing their common interest and
aiming for unity and harmony; the
domineering and ignorant are nursing
the blind pride of power and the equally
blind spirit of vengeful hate. How
shall justice be done? Is to-day better
or worse than yesterday? As wealth
grows and productive power increases
does labor gain or lose? These, and
other like questions, are asked and an
swered in ways wise or otherwise, by
Henry George and others.
Robbers of Labor.--Errors Examined.
In his "Protection or Free Trade, y
page 284, the robbers, assailing and
plundering labor are described as fol
lows:
"In itself the abolition OF protection is
! like the driving off OF q robber. But it
will not help man to drive off one rob-
| ber, if another still stronger and more ra-
pacious be left to plunder him. Labor
may be likened to a man who as he car.
ries home his earnings, is waylaid by
series of robbers One demands this
much, and another that much, but last
! of all stands one who demands all that is
| left, save just enough to enable the vic
| tim to maintain his life and come forth
next day to work. SO long as this last
robber remains, what will it benefit such
a man to drive off any or all of the other
robbers?
| "Such is the situation of labor to-day
throughout the civilized world. And the
robber that takes all that is left is private
property in land
While repudiating all lawless violence
or crime as remedies for social wrongs,
the writer of this gloomy view of the
condition of labor helps to feed the fire
wherein the anarchist forges his bomb
for the fatal dynamite. If it be true,
none need marvel at the desperate sui
lenness of that forger but it is not
true. Even in England, where the rob-
Der protection is driven off, but where
free trade and low wages bear rule, the
deposits in savings banks, largely the
savings of laborers, increased $3.50, ,O00,-
600 in "a years up to 1880. Still less is
it true in this country. In 1860, in Mas
sachusetts, ,03l depositOrs had in
savings banks, 81, Gal ,543; in 1880 the
depositors, mostly working men and
women, had increased to S117,l37, with
their total deposits reaching S42,O9l,-
592. From 1860 to 1881 the saving
bank deposits of nine States, all except
California in the manufacturing east
ern section, increased S62S 900, 600, and
reached a total of S7S7 600, ,OO0,-the
protection robber sytem having full